Why You Can't Install Culture

Kate Nicholroy and Maddie Fox dig into one of the most persistent frustrations in organisational life: why culture change programmes so often fail to deliver, and what leaders can do differently.

 

They explore the gap between change as an event and transition as an internal process, why the leadership team is always further ahead than the people hearing the news, and why culture does not live in the big moments. It lives in what happens every day in between.

 

• Why 70% of organisational transformations fail, and why the announcement is rarely the problem
• The Bridges Transition Model: change versus transition, and the three stages of endings, neutral zone, and new beginnings
• Why the change team is always ahead of everyone else in the room, and how to account for that gap
• The elephant and the rider: why logical business cases are not enough to shift behaviour
• What leaders signal through what they measure, and how those signals shape culture more than any values statement
• Why acknowledging what came before is not sentiment. It is a structural requirement for change that sticks
• Culture change as a daily leadership practice rather than a project with a launch date

 

 

Models and thinkers mentioned

• The Bridges Transition Model, William Bridges (1991)
• The Elephant and the Rider, Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis (2006)
• Family Constellations and systemic principles, Bert Hellinger
• Appreciative Inquiry (mentioned briefly; worth exploring further)

 

 

Reflection questions from this episode

Take these into your week:

 

• What am I measuring as a leader, and what does that signal to my people about what I actually value?
• When did I last ask someone what they would be sad to lose in any change we are making?
• What is one thing I can do differently in the ordinary spaces between the big moments?

 

For the next seven days, try noticing one moment each day where culture happens in the margins rather than in a staged event or formal communication. What do you notice, and what does it tell you about where your team really is?

 

 

Get in touch

We would love to hear from you. If you have been part of a culture change programme that genuinely worked, we want to know about it. Reach us at hello@acuriousspacepodcast.com.

 

Find all episodes and resources at www.acuriousspacepodcast.com.

 

 

Coming up next

Episode 10: Purpose and Values Under Pressure. How do you hold yourself to the culture you want when things get hard? That is when it gets crunchy, and we cannot wait to get into it.

 

 

With thanks to Tim Fox for producing A Curious Space and to Richard Flindell for the music.